Rafael Nadal had already taken his tearful rooftop tour of Centre Court including the first-ever nightime flyover to the Royal Box, as he tried to soften the blow for a dethroned king who had just lost the best game of tennis anyone ever saw.

"He's still the best. He's still five-time champion here. Right now I have one," protested Spain's sporting colossus to the assembled throng down in the dark. "Roger's still the No1."

The sentiments, expressed with such chivalry, perfectly captured the essence of a Wimbledon final played with such grace under pressure, magnanimity of spirit and peerless talent that you simply cannot conceive of finer combat in any sporting arena.

Yet behind the new young champion's winning modesty lay the brutal reality that, whatever a rankings computer might say, he, not the great Roger Federer, was now the undisputed numero uno.

After a performance in defeat even more wondrous than some of his most magnificent victories, nobody wanted to bury the king, just to praise him after Nadal's 6-4, 6-4, 6-7, 6-7, 9-7 triumph.

Yet Federer could not be consoled by the back-slappers admiring his shining humility in defeat and telling him he'd just been involved in the longest and best finals of all-time, one which really didn't deserve a loser. "There's no draws in tennis," he sighed.

His face betrayed the reality. Getting battered on Nadal's Parisian clay patch was one thing; losing this unreal five-setter in his own grass kingdom quite another. The flashbulbs lighting up the night reminded him of when he'd seen Pete Sampras win his seventh Wimbledon here. "That looked incredible. . . I wish it was me with the trophy, but that's the way it is," he shrugged, now saddled with a vision of exactly how hard it will now be to add the two Grand Slams to equal Sampras's all-time record of 14.

"My hardest loss, by far," he called it, leaving us wondering if he will be left as scarred as Bjorn Borg, who was never the same player after losing his tilt at a sixth successive Wimbledon to a thoroughly modern young leftie. So for John McEnroe, should we now read Nadal?
After that 1981 defeat, Borg never won another Grand Slam. Now that Federer's aura of invincibility on his best surface has been dented, it will be the biggest ask of his matchless career to lift himself to the heights being scaled by a 22-year-old exploring new levels of athleticism, speed and power.

It would be imbecilic to write off a man who wouldn't buckle yesterday until it had got so dark on Centre Court that even Nadal had to admit he "couldn't see a thing" when serving for the match after four-and-three-quarter hours.

Federer wouldn't use it as an excuse but it was a crying shame that, after the stop-start tennis under cloud cover, sunshine, wind and rain had been so unfathomably brilliant, it all ended in a lottery.

The Swiss may always wonder if he was deprived of becoming the first man since Henri Cochet 81 years ago to win Wimbledon from two sets down "over maybe a bit of light". That sliding roof really can't come quick enough. No one who witnessed Federer's sensational shotmaking on the verge of defeat in the fourth-set tie-break, a mini-version of Borg-McEnroe's epic in 1980 but no less thrilling, and his breathtaking saves of three match points could now ever doubt his capacity for a mental fight. Not least his admiring old mate Tim Henman who reckons: "He's too good a player not to bounce back from this but it's going to be a very long road back for him.

"It's psychologically that he will have to recover."

Can he? Much may be defined over the next couple of months during which Nadal will seek to transport a game which he's now proved has no equal on clay and grass, into equally invincible mode in the hard-court season, culminating in his assault on the Olympic title in Beijing and then the US Open.

The 2008 version of Nadal seems capable of anything and if he beats reigning champion Federer to win at Flushing Meadows in August then he'll almost certainly be the ATP's world No1 after his three-year wait as No2.

Yesterday's game, on the biggest stage of all, was so sensationally contested for so long that it now takes the pair into the pantheon of sport's greatest-ever rivalries; it was Borg/McEnroe-plus, it was Ovett and Coe in Moscow, Nicklaus and Watson at Turnberry; it was Ali and Frazier with racquets. "The greatest match I've ever seen," John McEnroe told millions across the US.

And sitting in his California living room in front of his telly, the greatest of them all, Rod Laver, just stared in awe at 21st Century sport at its finest.

"Unbelievable," he said. "You just marvel at the speed that Nadal's got to reach some of those shots. Federer was pulling off the angles but they were coming back with more angle. I was watching it and thinking, 'How do you win a point?'" At times yesterday, you could almost see Federer thinking the same thing. Yet after hours of playing the gracious loser, one sudden flash of irritation flashed across the great man's face when someone dared suggest to his face that his 231 straight weeks as No1 might be history.

"You write what you want," snapped Federer. "I'm going to try and win the Olympics and the US Open and then we can talk again." Just great. Exactly what we need; an indignant Federer still believing and an exultant Nadal still improving. We are talking of a rivalry for the ages here.